The Weekly Roundup (week of 3/20)
Another week goes by already. I kept it relatively light this time..
1. Models for culture-producer communities
Artist Jak Ritger provides a series of models that describe the mechanisms of how social media algorithms promulgate and shape the direction of events or narratives.
“These models offer non-exhaustive snapshots of one possibility for how production systems function. They are intuitive ways to think about how capital, attention, and energy moves through online information systems.”
When I say this is an incredibly sharp analysis, I really mean it. Make sure to read this one.
2. MSCHF's 'Tax Heaven 3000' Is a Dating Simulator That Also Files Your Income Taxes
I gotta hand it to MSCHF, they are really creative. They manage to take the most dystopian aspects of society and culture today to create things I would never think of. It’s equal parts hilarious and terrifying.
“Tax Heaven 3000 is a visual novel dating game that actually prepares your 2022 federal income tax return!
It’s always been a dream of mine to meet that special someone…and file their tax return.
Join me and we’ll search for deductions while searching for love!
Be careful! We’re not alone. Most wealthy countries make tax filing free, if the burden of preparation is even passed along to individuals at all. But, corporate tax filing services are (by dint of extensive lobbying) predatory, parasitic bottlenecks that deliberately complicate the tax filing process in order to make it unnavigable by ordinary people.”
3. $20,000 Pants … and Other Adventures in Men’s Luxury Resale!
This is a provocative, somewhat enraging, but mostly funny article about the wild side of the men’s luxury reselling business.
“First of all, it’s the homogenization of how everyone dresses in every city across the world,” he said, emphasizing how clothing has become a globally spoken language. “And then it’s the need to flex nonstop and the need to have new clothing all the time, so you can post fit pics and get the dopamine hit and hopefully get some clout off it.”
What this means for fashion as a whole, I have no clue. I’m ready to see some kind of evolution though.
4. Supreme Grows Up
Supreme turns 30! I’m only 25 so I think that makes me still reasonably young I guess. Fuck. Anyways, GQ writer Samuel Hine details Supreme’s arc in streetwear.
“Like many other young men before and after me, I loved every second of the experience. The Supreme business model was frustrating, but it was also brilliant at breeding obsession: the more you wanted something, the harder it was to actually buy it.”
It’s not the brand it once was clearly, and Sam touches on that quite well in this write-up.